A convoy into hell

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He was caught in a Baghdad suicide bomb and survived, unlike 22
others around him. Mark Munro reveals the horror to Tom Allard.

Mark Munro's nerves were frayed before he set out on a fateful
Saturday morning, part of a three-car security detail shuttling
Halliburton executives to Baghdad International Airport. The former
Australian Army soldier was loading his vehicle and checking his
weapons when a roadside bomb went off a few hundred metres away,
physically shaking him with its power.

It turned out to be a harmless controlled explosion but was a
chilling portent of what was to come just half an hour later - a
suicide bomber who drove his explosives-laden car into Munro's
convoy with devastating results. Twenty-two people died on that
clear May 7 morning, including many children in a nearby school bus
and two of Munro's comrades.

His account of the attack, revealed for the first time to the
Herald, outlines the horror wrought by one of the Iraqi
insurgents' favourite tactics. It is also a cautionary tale for the
hundreds of Australians who have signed up for lucrative security
work in Iraq, many of whom are increasingly coming from
non-military backgrounds.

"Usually we travelled around dressed as Iraqis and in Iraqi
vehicles. We always tried to blend in with the locals," Munro says.
This time, though, was different. It was a "hard detail". The
12-member security contingent used three large American
four-wheel-drive vehicles. Chevrolet Suburbans, purpose-built and
heavily armoured and protected by an arsenal. "We stuck out like
dogs' nuts," says Munro.

They were heading to Iraq's fortified green zone where most
government buildings and coalition facilities lie. En route, their
lead driver took an early, unexpected turn on to Saadoun Street,
one of Baghdad's main thoroughfares. There, the convoy ran into
heavy traffic.

"We were very exposed. We were creeping along. I remember
thinking 'Shit, how long are we going to be stuck here for?' We
came to a complete standstill and then almost immediately, it
happened."

One of the insurgents' vehicles blocked their path while another
rammed into the convoy's second vehicle, typically the one that
carries the valuable "cargo".

"Everything went bright. I had the wind knocked out of me. It
felt like my ears exploded and I couldn't hear anything except for
my own breathing," said Munro. "I remember trying to move my arms
and legs but my limbs did not want to function. My rifle became
instantly and intensely hot and I had to throw it at my feet
because it was burning my hands."

There was a wall of flames coming from the car ahead. "About
five or 10 seconds passed and then I heard this screaming in the
back seat."

One of his colleagues, Dave Casler, was holding his head with
blood teeming out of a large hole in his skull, a piece of shrapnel
lodged in his brain. "Dave was just sitting there looking at me
with his eyes wide open and a stare I will never forget," Munro
says.

He pulled him out just as a second explosion went off from
another car nearby, either a second charge detonated or a fuel tank
exploding. He walked about five metres and there was another blast,
as grenades left behind in his vehicle went off.

The entire convoy was in flames. Munro remembers walking around
in a daze, choking on acrid black smoke. Then insurgents started
firing.

"I wasn't sure where it was coming from. I could vaguely make
out one or two people standing at a window in a building opposite
our vehicles. I remember pointing my AK [AK-47 rifle] and firing a
few rounds off," he said. "The next 10 minutes was just a big blur.
I remember seeing body parts on the ground and people screaming
loudly. An Iraqi man ran straight into me carrying a small child.
The child was either unconscious or dead. I saw some other children
on the street that I thought were also dead."

Amid the chaos and carnage, the screams and the limbless
children, the bullets kept flying. "There were a lot of Iraqis
gathering. I knew a mob was forming so we kept shooting in the air
to warn off any attacks. Some of them were carrying AKs and
pistols. I seemed to be forever pointing my rifle at them,
wondering if they were about to turn on me," Munro says.

Casler was flown to a German military hospital and survived,
although he remains brain damaged. Two of Munro's colleagues, Todd
Venette and Brandon Thomas, were incinerated in their seats.

It was Munro's third tour in Iraq, and his last. Soon after the
attack, he returned to his wife and three children in Tasmania. He
says some friends in Australia have given him a hard time, accusing
him of contributing to the violence in Iraq and creating
unnecessary angst for his family.

"While my wife and children supported me, the cynics were quick
to label me," he says. "The fact is that Iraq is a war zone. My
role was to assist the reconstruction. I did not cause this war,
nor the death and destruction. I fell victim to an act of extreme
violence during the course of my duty."

After seven years of soldiering and a long career in the
security business, Munro maintains he has been coping as well as
could be expected. Family members urged him to take counselling,
which he's agreed to: "$175 for a 50-minute session."

There are at least 300 Australians in Iraq doing similar work
and Munro believes they, like him, were making a positive
contribution to Iraq's future. Certainly the US-led effort would
collapse without the 50,000 private security contractors the Iraqi
interior ministry estimates are in the country.

Up to 20,000 of them are believed to be foreigners, making this
private army the second-largest contribution to the coalition
presence after the US. This outsourcing of war costs the US a
fortune but takes pressure off its troops and allows it to avoid
conscription. It also keeps down the number of coffins returning
home draped with a US flag.

There are highly professional security firms in Iraq but also
some who Munro calls "cowboys" who hire people with little
experience in arms. "Some of our guys ran into some Americans who
were park rangers. They had the full kit, including M16s. They had
no idea what they were doing."

Another Australian security contractor remembered meeting a
woman guarding Baghdad's airport whose only experience was as a
security guard at a shopping mall.

Sallie Stone, the regional manager of the security firm AKE
Asia-Pacific, says security contracts are often awarded to the
lowest bidders. "As a result the quality of staff might not always
be what it could be."

One classic trap for cut-price security contractors is
underpaying their Iraqi staff, fuelling resentment and, in more
than a few cases, betrayal to the insurgents. Munro says the lure
of up to $US1000 ($1328) a day must not blind recruits to the
dangers. "There's nothing you can do really to stop a suicide
bomber. It's important that people are aware of the risks."

One Australian security contractor - an ex-SAS soldier who has
been in Iraq for 18 months and is working in Baghdad - told the
Herald Iraq is getting more dangerous before the planned
vote on a new constitution in mid-October. "Spectacular car bombs
are still being seen at a rate of one to three per day and there
are five to eight IEDs [improvised explosive devices]," he says.
"And there has been a marked increase in the amount of simple small
arms attacks. This place is a quagmire. My estimate is that it will
be at least 10 years before this place will resemble anything like
a city."